Yole Développement’s report, “MEMS Pressure Sensor Market & Technologies”, indicates that the MEMS pressure sensor market will grow by 3.8% per year, reaching a value of $2 billion in 2023. According to Yole’s analysts, automotive, consumer and avionics are the most dynamic markets. In addition, market leaders are different for each market segment, except for some MEMS sensor manufacturers, Robert Bosch, who is leading both automotive and consumer and Honeywell, and NXP who are present in 3 of the following market: automotive, industrial, medical and avionics & high end.
Including 29 applications, the report identifies the key driving forces and restraints for each pressure sensor market and application, and provides accurate market value and volume forecasts. This new analysis also details the competitive landscape with market shares globally and by market. In addition, analysts propose key technical insight on main pressure technologies and main technological trends, reverse engineering trends for TPMS and consumer applications.
HIGHLIGHTS
- Automotive and consumer applications are propelling the MEMS pressure sensor business to new heights.
- MEMS pressure sensors: automotive and consumer are still the main drivers.
- The competitive landscape varies between the automotive, consumer, medical, industrial, avionics and high-end markets.
- Technical trends: automotive electrification will transform the pressure sensor business.
The automotive industry is the oldest and the biggest market for MEMS pressure sensors. Therefore, powertrain applications represent more than 50% of the pressure sensors business, followed by safety, with TPMS being the biggest single automotive application. Driven by CO2 emission reduction and automation, pressure sensors will increasingly be used in the next five years, especially in China. Indeed, government’s regulations will require pressure sensors for several applications. These include TPMS, diesel and gasoline particle filters (DPF, GPF) and fuel tank evaporation (EVAP).
In parallel, the consumer market is now the second largest pressure sensor business, thanks to recent rapid adoption in high-end smartphones and tablets. This will further extend to Android mid-to-low value smartphones, driven by new use cases, such as indoor and outdoor navigation. Lower sensor costs and better accuracy and power also enable new applications to grow, such as wearables, electronic cigarettes, drones, and smart homes.
Avionics and high-end applications are still niche markets, but exhibit the fastest market growth thanks to the dynamic aircraft market and MEMS taking over from traditional technologies.
The medical and industrial markets are growing at a moderate rate because there is no significant change in term of applications, with one exception. New medical smart inhalers are in between the medical and consumer markets, and pave the way for many future medical consumer IoT applications.
Robert Bosch has aggregated both markets’ production volume to reduce cost, and further increase its competitive advantage. Other players like Infineon, Sensata, Denso and Melexis are mainly focused on automotive, while STMicroelectronic and Alps serve the consumer market. Only TE Connectivity and NXP also have multimarket presence. The key players are large groups active in various MEMS sensors, with inertial, pressure and gas sensor devices. Vertical integration is usual in automotive at companies like Bosch, Denso and Sensata, but not in consumer, because systems are smaller and thus there is no need for tier one component suppliers.
The medium-to-low-volume medical, industrial, avionics and high-end markets all have many of the same key players. They include Honeywell, Amphenol, NXP, TE Connectivity, Omron, First Sensor, Merit, Elmos SMI, and TDK. These companies grow their business by targeting multiple markets, and by making added-value modules. There are also pure avionics and high-end market players, such as Kulite or Memscap.
Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) between Amphenol and GE, Sensata, Schrader and CST, TDK and Invensense, and Qualcomm, NXP and Freescale all included pressure sensor activities, and activity has therefore been concentrated. The budget for future acquisitions will probably exceed US$100 million. The MEMS pressure sensors from Yole report lists future possible targets, and ranks them to help M&A decision makers. For more details, visit Yole.
The MEMS & Sensors team is attending lot of key conferences and trade shows all year long. This is a great opportunity for Yole’s analysts to meet leading MEMS & Sensors companies and present results of latest technology & market analyses. Next dates are: Sensors Expo & Conference (June 26-28, San Jose, USA) with two presentations:
"The perceptual era of IoT has begun, mobile phones first" on June 27 at 10:00 AM – Speaker: Guillaume Girardin, Photonics, Sensing and Display Head of Division at Yole Développement.
"Autonomous Vehicle Sensors and Sensor Fusion" on June 26 within the Automotive Workshop – Speaker: Dr. Yohann Tschudi, Software & Market Analyst & Guillaume Girardin, Photonics, Sensing and Display Head of Division at Yole Développement.